Concerns about starting your first job after law school are justified. It is terrifying. For many, the first year as an associate will be your first professional job. Little has prepared you for the difficult, confusing and stressful first year ahead.
There are three levels of positive responses to suffering. The first, sympathy, is merely the mental recognition that suffering is present. The second, empathy, includes an emotional component, with the effect that we feel for the person who is suffering. The third, compassion, includes the desire or motivation to do something about that person’s suffering.
“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.” —Leonardo da Vinci I have spent 40 years in practice and nearly as long serving as an official and unofficial mentor for young lawyers, as well as more than a decade as an educator at many levels, including law school. All these experiences…
On some mornings, fog shrouds the Ohio River, settling into the river valley like loosely applied caulk. Twenty-three years ago, while on my way to work, my car weaved through the thick, shape-shifting strands as I navigated Kellogg Avenue, which follows the contours of the river toward downtown Cincinnati.
This February, we mark Black History Month at a time of sharpened focus on institutional racism, the Black Lives Matter movement and a raging pandemic that has disproportionately impacted minority communities.
Negative self-judgment is a career killer. When we believe that we are fundamentally flawed, it is like swimming upstream 24 hours per day, seven days per week. We aren’t born that way, but we learn that we are unworthy from an early age. The problem for lawyers arises when our careers do not go as planned.
In some cultures, it is honorable for monks to parade through the streets with their rice bowls, seeking handouts so they can live a life of religious purity, while bestowing good fortune to those who contribute. In the United States, we call such people panhandlers. Here, Zen Buddhism is seldom practiced by monks but instead by farmers, auto mechanics, teachers and judges.
To my white progressive friends: To say that last spring’s killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor shook me would be an understatement. I also was shaken by the depth of my multiracial daughter’s anger—including at her entire white family—and I found myself thinking long and hard about my own racial culpability.
Many people are grateful that 2020 is coming to an end. Between the social disruptions, political disruptions, business chaos and all the changes happening in our lives, people are thinking more in terms of survival than life improvement.
The ABA Journal wants to host and facilitate conversations among lawyers about their profession. We are now accepting thoughtful, non-promotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors.
